use of the president going out of his way to embrace petraeus. it is not like the president can alienate petraeus before that testimony, but if you look, the president largely portrayed him. >> i think you want to talk about this fiscal cliff. >> one of the goals he had was restating his position on the tax side, and that is that increase needs to happen for wealthy americans. there are always two sides of the fiscal cliff. there is the tax side and the spending side. over 10 years, 1.2 trillion dollars, but the question is, does the president support a temporary postponement? that is what i want to get to, because there is not going to be enough time unless you postponed. >> did you sense he was open to some kind of a deal with republicans? where does the deal lied? >> they did two steps forward, one step back. then he says he is open to the idea of having rates stay where they are apt, but finding the money by closing loopholes, so- called tax expenditures. the idea but it was open to all ideas. he wants to send a message that he is willing to